


Best Nightmares Forever

by Ember_Keelty



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Guys Win, Other, Torture, possible consent issues - stolen souls and bodies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-07 13:51:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5458778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ember_Keelty/pseuds/Ember_Keelty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reconciling with an old friend is made much easier with a shared project to work on. Destroying a mutual enemy will do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note the tags and warnings.

            "In this world, it's kill or be killed," the flower repeats, as though it were a mantra or some kind of demented catchphrase. Just like the first time he said it, something about the words grates at your mind. You've been trying not to remember everything that happened right before you died, but...

            You feel tears running down your face, and for a moment you're disoriented and almost ashamed, but then you realize they're not yours. Did Frisk really manage to get _that_ attached to the king in the ten seconds between him trying to kill them and his death? You know Frisk gets attached to people stupidly easily, but this is a new low even for them.

            _He wanted to be a family_ , they answer hollowly to your jeering.

            _Yes, he does that_ , you tell them. _Trust me, you aren't missing much_.

            It's not that living with Asgore was bad, exactly. He and Toriel took much better care of you than any human ever had, and you aren't _completely_ ungrateful for that. It's just that it got to be exhausting, the way he kept angling for you to express that gratitude, to express a love and trust you did not and could not feel. You know how adults are. You know that you _have_ to compromise your dignity with them, to give them at least the illusion of control, the illusion that you're exactly whatever kind of child they want you to be. You know what happens when you refuse to do that. So you never called Asgore your dad, but you also didn't object when he called himself that, or when he wore that hideous sweater proclaiming it to the world, or even when he referred to Asriel as your brother. You have to admit, it was a little bit funny seeing Asriel squirm when he did that — but you were squirming too, and that wasn't funny at all.

            Still, you would have forgiven him for all of that if only things had really been like you thought they were when Frisk first entered New Home. As they'd dragged you through the Underground, you'd been wondering how Toriel had ended up alone in the Ruins, and how Asgore of all people had ended up killing humans. Then, wonderfully, it turned out that was all thanks to you. Maybe your death hadn't been in vain after all. Maybe there was even a point to your having been woken up and trapped by an insufferable little human in a body you couldn't control. Maybe you would be able to retain consciousness when Asgore absorbed their soul, and you would get to watch as humanity fell to your own orchestrations.

            _That's not going to happen_ , Frisk told you then. Apparently, you think too loudly when you get excited. You have to work on that. Them having access to your mind is even more uncomfortable than you not having access to their body. _Everyone keeps saying he's really nice, so there_ must _be a way to talk him down. Maybe I'll have to die a hundred times to find it. But I_ will _find it._

 _You idiot_ , you gloated back. _A boss monster with just one human soul could splatter something like you before you even get the chance to open your mouth. Asgore has six. There is no victory condition for you here. He'll just kill you over and over until you break._

Even then, though, something niggled at you. Why hadn't Asgore gone to the surface after absorbing the first soul? Maybe Asriel's death had scared him, made him overestimate the strength of humans and choose to play things safe. Then Frisk brought you face to face with him, and he seemed completely unchanged from what you remembered, but you still dared to hope that maybe, maybe...

            It wasn't until you saw the still-unabsorbed souls floating in their canisters that you had to accept the truth. The king was as cowardly as his dead son. All the monsters putting up with his nonsense and pinning their hopes on him were cowards too, or maybe just idiots. It didn't really matter. Nothing mattered. Your resurrection was a sick joke, just like your whole life had been.

            You didn't even particularly care when, after a dozen or so deaths, Frisk stopped talking and started fighting for the first time since they'd left the Ruins. You could feel your knife in your hand, slashing trails of dust from the flesh on Asgore's arms, and it meant nothing. Frisk would kill him and take his soul and return to the place that they hated so much they had tried to _die_ to escape from it. They were human, so why _wouldn't_ they be that nonsensically horrible? Maybe the captain of the guard would keep her word and hunt them down. Maybe they would kill her too, or maybe she would be sensible enough to absorb the souls and unleash their full power. Maybe _then_ humanity would get what it deserved. But even that didn't feel like it would count as a victory, because it would have almost nothing to do with you, and the idea of monsters inheriting the Earth had lost most of its appeal. They were all cowards or idiots.

            The only person you've ever called a friend was _both_.

            You were thinking about him when the flower showed up, after Frisk changed their mind _again_. You were remembering how he had betrayed you, were recalling the words you had screamed into his head when you'd begged him not to throw both your lives away for the sake of human garbage. And you're almost certain, now, that it's not deja vu. You aren't quite so certain that it's not a coincidence, because that was hardly the most original thing you've ever said, _kill or be killed_. That first part, though. _In this world..._ When you said it, you're fairly sure you meant the surface. The first time the flower said it, you thought he meant the Underground — which confused you, because that was obviously nonsense. But what if he was quoting out of context? Wouldn't that answer some questions?

            It would raise a lot of _other_ questions, though. Including some uncomfortable ones. About feelings.

            You sense Frisk reaching for their save. They want to go back for Asgore. Not even to salvage his soul so that they can escape, just to keep him from dying. After all the times he killed them. Ridiculous.

            The flower (Asriel?) stops them. He's in control now, and he has a lot to say about it. There's so much giddy chatter, a whole monologue, just like your games of pretend whenever you let him be the villain. Which you didn't do often, because it never felt right. If there's a human and a monster, then of course the human is the villain. All monsters believed that, and so did you. You would have been happy enough being villains together, but Asriel wouldn't allow it. He always wanted a story where the hero won, even if it wasn't him.

            If this is really what's become of him, then apparently he doesn't think that way anymore.

            "It feels great to have a soul inside me again!" he says. _Again_. He had one, and then he lost it? When he died, maybe. And then he came back as one of your flowers. Somehow. It's no stranger than what's happened to you.

            Maybe you're just seeing what you want to see. You know you really shouldn't want to see _Asriel_ , after everything he did to you, but you feel so trapped and hopeless right now. You desperately need a friend, and he's the only friend you've ever had, the only friend you can even imagine having.

            Frisk lifts your knife against his bloated, beastly form, and for some reason, you feel a little sick.

            He kills them almost instantly.

            Then, he kills them again.

            The third time, they manage to get your knife in him. It does basically nothing, and then they die.

            This is kind of funny. Were you afraid they were going to hurt him? If so, that was awfully silly of you. You savor the shadow of their pain: the dull, distant ache, like the feeling of being beaten in a dream. It's not _comfortable_ , exactly, but knowing how much worse it is for them makes it feel sort of good.

            _What if I can't do this?_ you hear Frisk wonder in the void between life and death, the darkness outside of time where all that exists is them and you. _What if it's impossible?_

And just like that, you have hope again. This is it, your one last chance to win.

            Calm. You have to stay calm. If you let them hear what you're planning, it's all over forever.

            _It's not impossible_ , you tell them. _But there's no way_ you _can do it. Let me try._

Doubt. Distrust. They don't believe you're strong enough to kill him, and if you are, then they _really_ shouldn't let you out.

            _I'm not going to kill him. I want to try_ your _way._

 _Why?_ Doubt. Distrust. Confusion. But also, cautiously, hope. They want so badly to believe that there's some good in you, some way to reach a compromise and free themself from your hate.

            Don't laugh. Not even in your mind. Calm.

            _I think I know who he is. If I'm right, then we were friends, once. I want to talk to him._

_Could you maybe just tell me what to say?_

_That won't work. He won't listen to anyone but me. And no, you can't just impersonate me. Not convincingly enough to fool my best friend._

            They don't answer right away, but you can sense that they're considering it.

            _Please, Frisk_ , you say. You wonder if they can feel how desperate you are, how honestly it hurts you to choke down your pride and beg. _I want to talk to my friend again. Please._

They hesitate just a moment longer. Then: _Good luck_.

            Time shifts around you, and suddenly, you are alive again. _You_ are alive again. _You_ draw breath into their lungs. Their pulse spikes with _your_ thrill of triumph. You can still feel them in the background: anxious, worried, hopeful. They could probably wrest control right back, if they chose to. You'll have to be careful.

            Asriel (please be him, _please_ be him) starts monologuing again. You shout over his mockery, "Shut _up_ , you dumb goat!"

            He does. The face on his screen flickers through a half dozen expressions in a fraction of a second, too quickly for you to decipher any of them, before settling into carefully controlled impassivity. " _What_ did you call me?"

            "Then it really is you." Your heart feels warm and light. Frisk's heart. _Your_ heart. Everything they have is yours, or will be soon enough. "Asriel Dreemurr."

            "What are you saying?" The screen flickers again. "Why are you using that name? I'm Flowey! Flowey the flower!"

            "Look at me, Asriel." You adjust your grip on your knife, comfortable and confident and entirely unlike Frisk. "Look close." You reach down deep inside yourself and pull up your favorite memory: the blood on your hands, the fire in your veins, the incomparable ecstasy of having _won_ in the most complete way that it's possible to win at fighting. You hold in your heart that one perfect moment of golden happiness, and you smile like only you can smile.

            Back before you died, Asriel never knew what he was requesting when he asked to see your "creepy face". He certainly didn't know what lay just on the other side of it: the crash after the high, the sickening realization that they would never let you get away with this, that they wouldn't even care that he hit you first, they _never_ care that the others almost always hit you first, because you probably brought it on yourself by being a freak, so how dare you do everything you can to hold onto a shred of dignity and maybe even make them think twice about laying hands on you again, and they'd lock you away forever, you'd be trapped and under their power, and your only hope of escape was to make yourself disappear before they could catch you.

            Maybe now that everything is different, now that Asriel himself is different, he'll be able to understand why you got angry when he asked too often.

            "Chara?" It's hard to read the emotion in his distorted, artificial voice. "Chara! It really is you!" The face on the screen changes to an image of his flower form, and the flower smiles giddily. "I thought it looked a little like you! But that was impossible, right? Heh. Like any of _this_ is possible! I want to say 'I'm sorry for attacking you,' but... Well, I can't. Not honestly, anyway. I won't lie to _you_ , Chara. You're the only one who can really understand me! And you forgive me anyway, right? After all, I'm doing this for you. I'm going to destroy humanity, just like you wanted me to. That is still what you want, isn't it? If you changed your mind and want me to make it up to you some other way, I can do that, too! I can do just about anything now! You're still okay after all that, right? I know you're cool and strong and not afraid of pain or _anything_ , but I want to hear you say that you're okay."

            "I'm fine, Asriel, thank you. The truth is, this isn't even my body, and I don't feel much physical sensation of any sort when I'm not in control of it." You pick your words carefully, sorting the information you have to convey by both its importance and its ability to pass as innocuous. Frisk is listening, and they are _really_ not going to like what they're about to hear. You want to make sure Asriel can work out what to do even if they take over again before you're ready. "The other human is still in here. They're only letting me out to talk to you because you backed them into a corner, so you've actually been quite helpful. I am very proud of you, Asriel."

            "You are? I mean, of course you are. I've done everything right this time. I'm not a weak little crybaby anymore. But I _am_ still your best friend, so let's wreck everything together!"

            _Uh. Where exactly are you going with this?_ Frisk wants to know. They're growing increasingly uneasy. You suppose it's time to take the plunge.

            "Yes, let's. But first, about this human whose body I've taken: help me destroy their mind, won't you?"

            Your whole frame convulses.

            "No," Frisk says out loud.

            Anger flares within you. That's _your_ voice now. You were just warming up to it. You are going to have it back.

            "Chara?" Asriel asks, looking about as concerned as he can with a cartoonish flower's face and an incomprehensible body. "Hey, what's going on?"

            You try to answer him. Your mouth doesn't move. You make a few strangled noises deep in your throat, before Frisk clamps down on that too.

            You fight back just enough to keep their attention. Then, while they're focusing on your voice, you seize control of your knife-hand and stab yourself in the thigh.

            You scream. Frisk screams. For a moment, you're both on the same wavelength. Then they pull back, just a little. Just enough. You guessed right: they really can't handle pain quite as well as you can.

            "S-see?" you stammer to Asriel. "They respond to being hurt. Even when we're fifty-fifty, I can take it. They can't."

            "Uh," says Asriel, and stares. Apparently, the whole "being less useless" thing is still a work in progress for him.

            "You just have to break them," you explain. "Wasn't that already more or less the plan? Killing them over and over until they give up and relinquish their soul? I'll work on them from the inside, and when we're finished, they'll give their soul to _me_. I think you can do a little better, though. You should really— OW! _Shit_! What the hell?"

            While you were talking, Frisk rallied enough to yank your knife out of their thigh and throw it across the room. Idiot. Don't they know that will just make it bleed more? Though you suppose that might not matter so much in this particular situation.

            "Wow. How juvenile. _That_ really is mine, and always has been. If you were trying to annoy me, then congratulations: you did it. Here's your prize." You focus on your hands, forcing them to wrap around your thigh. You dig your fingers deep into the wound and tear the gash wider. The leg, already trembling, buckles suddenly beneath you, and your knee strikes the ground with a jolt. Someone is screaming again. It's probably both of you.

            God, this is agony. You haven't felt anything like it since you were alive and under the power of humans. Maybe not even then. This time, though, you're the one with someone else under your power. That's enough to get you through it.

            "Stop messing around," you tell Asriel while Frisk tries desperately to stem the flow of blood. You don't resist when they pull off their sweater and wad it up against the gash, though the coarse fiber stings even more than the open air. "Stop letting them have the illusion of being able to fight back. You have to make them understand how helpless they are."

            "Uh," Asriel repeats. "Right. Okay. Just so we're clear, you really want me to do everything I can to torture the body _you're_ inside of right now? Because I can definitely do that. I'm not exactly squeamish anymore. But... you're _sure_ you'll be all right? Like, mentally?"

            Oh, Asriel. "I haven't been 'all right mentally' for as long as I can remember," you boast. "But yes. Do it. I want to be free. I want to _live_ again. Let's set right what went wrong all those years ago. If you really regret it, then this is your chance for redemption."

            A beat after that last word, Asriel's screen turns to static, like he doesn't quite know how to react and is trying to hide it. A part of you wants to keep talking to him, but Frisk has finished binding their wound and turned their attention back to fighting you, and you're running out of ideas for distracting them. Maybe the best way to spur Asriel into action is to disappear and make him chase after you. You let go and allow yourself to sink beneath Frisk's consciousness, the merciful numbness that washes over you as you do so a consolation for your loss of control. Frisk won't get any such reprieve until they're dead.

            Too bad for them.


	2. Chapter 2

            "Asriel?" Frisk asks, trying and failing to stand. "Toriel's Asriel? The Asriel from the story?"

            In a flash of red light, the screen flickers back to life, displaying an expression of pure rage. "You! _You_ don't get to call me that!"

            "Then you weren't always like this," Frisk says, because of course they're going there. "You spared the humans who attacked you. You were so _good_. That part of you can't have just disappeared."

            _Why don't you tell him how misty-eyed you got when you heard that bit of history?_ you suggest idly. _I'm sure he'll be so impressed that he'll want to befriend you right away and not care at all anymore that you're holding his best friend captive inside your head._ Frisk ignores you.

For a moment, Asriel just stares. Then he bursts into shrieking laughter. "Really? Are you even listening to yourself? You can't think of _any_ problems with that thing you just said?"

            "Tell me the problem."

            "I would, but I don't think I could possibly use words small enough to make sense to someone _that_ stupid." His whole massive form shakes with mirth, adding a rustle of leaves to the cacophony. "Of course it disappeared! It was murdered! And you actually thought you could get on my good side by _reminding me of how that happened_!"

            "No." They try again to stand. "That's not..." Their vision reels. "I wasn't..." Predictably, their wounded leg gives out the moment they try to put weight on it. This time, they end up sprawled on the floor. "I'm sorry."

            It takes Asriel a few minutes to calm his laughter. You want to be angry with him for wasting your time, but this is really funny. If you were at all physically capable of laughing right now, you'd be incapacitated too. "Wow. You _really_ like struggling against the inevitable, dontcha?" he says once he's pulled himself together.

            Two thick vines creep across the floor and spiral their way up Frisk's arms. They bind you loosely, the thorns scraping so lightly over your skin that they draw only the thinnest trickles of blood. You can't really feel it at all, but Frisk does, and stiffens in fear that they'll get cut worse if they move too much. Asriel lifts them off the ground almost gingerly, bringing them high enough up that falling would break some bones but probably not kill them outright. Frisk tries to go even stiller. You think they would make themself stop breathing entirely if they could, and if that would protect them from slipping through Asriel's grasp. A third vine wraps around their chest and abdomen. A fourth one, thornless and thinner than the others, circles their neck and tilts their chin so that they are looking directly at the manically grinning face on the screen.

            "Go ahead," says Asriel. "Struggle. Tear yourself to bloody shreds!"

            All the vines constrict at once.

            A dozen thorns, each as thick as a railroad spike, plunge deep into Frisk's flesh. Their scream is cut off by the fourth vine strangling them. Unthinkingly frantic for air, they thrash around in their restraints, widening their wounds. The pain at the intrusions into their body builds relentlessly, like a dozen silent voices shrieking through their nervous system to _just stop moving!_ But they can't do that. Even as what little strength they have drains away with their life's blood spilling from the cuts and pattering like rain on the floor below, their bound arms twitch hopelessly with the drive to pull the vine from their throat and _breathe_.

            Just when you think they're about to fade out entirely, Asriel loosens his grip. The sudden rush of air into their lungs feels like a knife to the chest. The haze of desperation clears from their mind, leaving behind an all-too-clear horror at the mangled state of their body. They are dizzy from blood loss. _You_ are dizzy from blood loss. It's left them disoriented and sick, but you? You just feel giddy. You don't know what's gotten into Asriel that could have inspired him to do something that fantastically brutal, but you're glad to have him on your side. You want to keep him there forever.

            "Instincts are weird, huh?" Asriel says conversationally to Frisk as they hang, limp and dripping with blood, from his vines. "That would have hurt a lot less if you hadn't reflexively tried to get free. You won't live much longer with those injuries than you would have if I'd finished choking you, and that's probably for the best anyway. Longer to live just means longer to suffer! Not that you're any less stupid with your conscious decisions. If you were, you would give up your soul now and spare yourself the pain."

            _Well, Frisk?_ you ask them. You doubt it will be that easy, but you can't keep yourself from hoping. You want control back _now,_ while this confused admiration for everything Asriel has become is still fresh and novel. You want to tell him how magnificent he is.

            _Can't_ , they answer. _You'll hurt my friends_.

            _Oh my god, just how stupid_ are _you?_ If you were in the driver's seat right now, you would literally die of laughter. You would splash out the last of Frisk's blood through shaking with it. _You don't_ have _any friends!_

Anger. That's a little surprising — they don't get angry often. _Toriel Sans Papyrus Undyne Alphys!_ The list isn't directed at you, but it flashes through their head with such intensity that it might as well be.

 _That's exactly what I mean_ , you tell them. _Those people are practically strangers to you. You walked into their lives just today, and you were going to walk right back out without so much as telling them your name. If you think_ that's _friendship, you've obviously never had a real friend in your life._

You're right. They know you're right. _I don't care. I have to protect them anyway. I have to protect_ everyone _from you._

_You can't even protect yourself._

_That's fine. If you're going to hurt someone, it_ should _be me. I deserve it for letting you out._

You try to answer, but thinking is harder than it should be. It takes you a moment to understand why. You're so used to death coming suddenly that its gradualness this time snuck up on you. For a long few minutes, the two of you teeter on the edge. You're too exhausted to needle them, and they're too exhausted to care. When you finally fall into darkness, it's a relief to you both.

            You don't let them have that relief for long. Frisk would like nothing more than to take a moment in the void to pull themself together, but you immediately move to load, and they have to act fast to get ahead of you and keep you from taking control when you come back to life.

            "Chara?" Asriel asks hopefully as your senses return to you.

            Frisk suddenly becomes aware of the knife in your hand and tosses it away like the hilt burns their fingers.

            "Heh. I guess not." Asriel's smile is a rueful one. You had no idea that ugly, clownish face he's chosen for himself could make such tender expressions. "That's fine, though. I know my friend is in there somewhere. I'll just keep ripping you open until I find them!"

            Too fast to see it coming, a single vine shoots forward and skewers Frisk like a spear, piercing their stomach and punching through their lower spine. Their legs give out instantly, vanishing from both their perception and yours. Frisk glances down so that you can see them dangling uselessly below you, which is the only way either of you can be sure they didn't just cease to exist. There are some other interesting things to see in that direction, too, and Frisk instantly wishes they hadn't looked. They throw their arms out to brace themself against the vine, the only thing holding them up.

            They can't even scream. Their throat is too full of hot liquid. It bubbles up into their mouth, the sourness of bile and the metallic tang of... _Ha!_

            _I can_ taste _your blood_ , you think at them, because it's hilarious that that is a thing you can say in all earnestness. It really is lucky that you can't physically laugh, or you would be hurting _so_ much right now.

            _Something is really wrong with you_ , Frisk thinks back angrily, as though it were an insult and not just the punchline to your own joke.

            _Sell me your soul, Frisk_ , you say, not because you think they actually will just yet, but because you aren't done riffing on this theme. _I am literally a demon. Sell me your soul, and I will release you from your pain._

 _No! Stop asking!_ Frisk doesn't get it, but that's fine. Asriel will get it. Asriel really is your best friend, in this life even more than in the last. You can't wait to talk to him again.

            You feel Frisk reaching for something they can anchor themself to, something they can focus on that isn't pain or horror. Friends. Or, anyway, close enough to being friends. _"Someone really cares about you."_ They have to hold onto that. _"Someone really cares about you." "Someone really cares about you." "Someone really cares about you."_

 _He was talking about Toriel, wasn't he?_ you interrupt. _I wonder how much she'd care if she knew about the time you beat her to death with a stick._

_I didn't mean to kill her._

_No, but you did mean to hurt her. You can't pretend you didn't. After all the kindness she showed to you, too._

_I went back and fixed it._

_And that makes it all better, does it? Cruelty ceases to matter if you wipe your victims' memories clean of what you did to them? I'll have to remember that._

_Shut up!_ But even when you do, they don't resume their mantra. Instead, they cast around for something else. _Sans. He might know everything. He obviously knows_ something. _And he's still rooting for me. He is. He said._

_He also said he was itching to murder you. Just like all your other "friends" have tried to do._

_Stop it! No. Doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter whether anyone really cares about me. I care about them, and that's enough. They're such good people. I have to protect them. Toriel Sans Papyrus Undyne Alphys!_

_How is putting yourself through this supposed to protect them? What's the difference between dying or being stuck in a short, unbreakable time loop without realizing it? Either way, they have no future._

_I'll find a way to break the loop._ Their arms go limp, and they slump against the skewer. _I have to._

 _So it's not an eternal stalemate that you're aiming for? You actually think you're going to_ win _against us? How? With some miraculous "power of friendship"? Even if that existed, do you really think that it would be on_ your _side? That we're "evil", so our love for each other just doesn't matter? That's horrible. You're horrible._

Gravity pulls down on them, slowly stretching out the hole in their gut. _There has to be a way. There has to. There has to._

_No, there really doesn't. Reality isn't fair, Frisk. It isn't just, or kind, or good, or anything that could let you win here. You know that as well as I do. There's a reason you chose to climb Mt. Ebott._

_Has to. Has to. Determination._ They're losing themself to pain and exhaustion, but you aren't finished with this conversation just yet.

            _That's right, Frisk. Determination_. You clamp down on their soul, holding it together even as it cracks down the middle. _Did you forget? That's my power, too._ The soul strains against your grip. The more force you apply, the more you can feel their pain start to seep into you. It's the strangest sensation, and honestly kind of fascinating. _It occurs to me that you might misunderstand my intentions here. I don't plan to waste effort on making your "friends" suffer before they die. They're just not that interesting to me. I may even let some of them live, if they're smart enough to stay out of my way._

 _Stop. Let go. Please._ You're fairly sure that they've technically bled out by now. Does that mean you've made them into some sort of zombie? This whole thing just keeps getting funnier, well beyond the point that should be possible.

            _I want you to think about everything I've said, first._ They don't, really, but the bleed over of their experience is starting to get genuinely unpleasant. _Fine, then. But you_ know _this isn't an escape. I'll see you on the other side._

You let go. Their soul doesn't just crack, but explodes into vivid red shrapnel. It's a strikingly beautiful final sight before your consciousness cuts out.

            Darkness again. Frisk tries their best to remain cowering in the void and licking their wounds, but you drag them back against their will. If they want to stay dead, they know what they have to do.

            "Chara?" Asriel asks. It's a little bit nice, you think, that his voice saying your name is the first thing you become aware of when this happens.

            "Asriel." You wave your knife in greeting. "I just came up with a fun game we could play. Want to hear about it?"

            "Chara! This isn't a trick, right? Is it over? Are they dead?"

            "Not yet. But that's all right, isn't it? Aren't you having fun?" Frisk struggles against your hold on them, ineffectively and without much force. You can feel them going sick and weak with fear at just the sight of Asriel and the sound of his voice. They don't really _want_ to be inhabiting their body when it's delivered up to him to be destroyed again.

            "Uh... yeah?" Asriel looks a little unsure. You smile encouragingly at him, and he smiles back, probably more timidly than he means to. "Yeah, of course I am! Killing humans — pretty great, right? All that colorful blood, and the weird way the body just sort of hangs around with no one in it... Anyway, tell me about the new game!"

            "It's a very simple way we can play against each other. You try to make them pass out from pain alone, and I'll see how long I can keep them awake. No doing the sort of damage that could actually kill them, that's _cheating_."

            The gentleness of his smile disappears, broken by his scribbly cartoon lips parting to reveal too-large teeth. "Genius, Chara! Just you and me, the way it always should have been — that other _thing_ in there with you won't even be a player, just a piece in our game. I bet I'll be way better at it than you'd expect from me, too. Ready?"

            Somewhere in the depths of your mind, you can feel Frisk already falling apart. _Is it going to get worse? It can't. How could it be worse?_

 _Let's find out together!_ You let your consciousness sink beneath theirs. Immediately, your smile vanishes from their face and your knife slips from fingers that no longer have the will to hold it.

            Asriel looks startled for a moment, then laughs. "Howdy! Boy, it's a _lot_ easier to tell you two apart than I was worried it would be!"

            Something grabs Frisk's ankle, and then they're falling, and then they maybe aren't but the world has spun around them so much that they can't tell. They're already screaming by the time they realize they've been plucked off the ground and hung precariously upside-down twenty feet in the air. More vines shoot toward them out of the darkness from every direction. Thick, strong, thorny ones wrap around their legs, their chest, their arms. Thin, dexterous tendrils circle their wrists, creep across the palms of their hands, and twine around their fingers. They don't know what's coming, but they know it will hurt, because it _always_ hurts when he touches them, and now he's touching more of them than he ever has before. They scream and shudder and sob, and their tears fall the wrong way, catching in their eyebrows and running down their temples.

            "Crybaby!" Asriel jeers, and there's so much hatred crammed into that one word, such viciously gleeful disdain in the laugh that accompanies it. "I haven't even started yet! Or did you just realize what I'm going to do to you?" Frisk doesn't answer. They _can't_ answer. The terror flooding their mind has washed away their ability to form words. "Here, let me give you a hint."

            The tendril around the smallest finger on their left hand, with astonishing strength for something so small and seemingly flimsy, bends back the second knuckle. There's a brief moment of building discomfort, and then a _snap_ and a sudden spike of pain. Frisk's screams pitch up and their tears fall thicker, both from the physical escalation and the awful understanding that closes around their heart like a vise. He really is going to _break_ them. Every loop of the vines holding them up marks a bone he intends to shatter.

            Asriel is really going all out to impress you, isn't he? This could get difficult. You're looking forward to it.


	3. Chapter 3

            _Snap snap snap snap!_

You can hear the rest of the fingers on Frisk's left hand breaking even through their wailing and Asriel's laughter. Then there's a substantially louder _SNAP_ as he takes out all five fingers of their right hand at once. It's such a satisfying sound, like bubble wrap popping, or autumn leaves crunching underfoot. He bends back their lower knuckles, too, and then their wrists, and then squeezes each of their forearms so that the bones in them creak before collapsing with a hearty _CRACK!_ By that time, your vision is clouding over and your head is spinning and Frisk isn't thinking at all, just screaming inside and out. You focus on your desire to live, your desire to win, your desire to keep them hurting until your hatred has been slaked, and determination flares through you, burning the clouds from your eyes and the haze from your head. More and more, you begin to feel their pain as though it were your own, but that's fine. That's excellent, even, because it means that they're fading, that they're _yours_. Asriel crushes your upper arms into splinters, and you relish the sharp physicality of the sensation. _He_ is yours too, and that knowledge makes all the difference. It isn't torture if you can make it stop any time you want. It's just playing rough with your friend.

            The vines circling your chest shift around a bit, ruffling Frisk's sweater. "Huh," says Asriel. "I guess this part's a bit trickier than I'm used to." You can't help but wonder what he means by that. What _is_ he used to? Just how has he been filling his time since he came back to life — and how long ago did that happen, anyway?

            Letting your mind wander turns out to be a mistake, because it leaves you unfocused and unprepared when he shatters your ribs. The pain swallows your thoughts, and darkness floods in from the corners of your vision.

            When you come to, your bones are unbroken, though you're still dangling upside down and wrapped up in vines. Frisk doesn't scream this time, just cries, quiet and hopeless. Their body might be whole again, but they don't _feel_ whole. There's no relief in knowing that they have to do _that_ all over from the start — and over, and over, and over, and over. They want to be dead. They should never have changed their mind about wanting to be dead. But they can't die now. They can't just let you have what you want from them. You're evil and you need to lose, or you'll hurt other people who deserve it even less.

            "Welcome back!" says Asriel. "You were out for a count of ten, so I chalked that up as a win for me and reloaded. Not bad, huh? I've had lots of practice breaking bones. After all, that's the only kind of physical damage one of my favorite toys can take!"

            Even as out of it as they are, Frisk puts the pieces together before you do. You're almost impressed, but it's really only because they've been worrying about something like this since they talked to that comedian at the diner, and anyway, all they've accomplished is breaking their own heart. "Why?" they ask wearily. "How could you..? Why would you..? 'Kill or be killed'? _He's_ not like that. No one I've met down here is like that, no one but you and your friend. So _why_?"

            "Gee, for something brand new, you sure ask some boring questions! Different face, same worn out dialogue. 'Why, Flowey, _why_? Why are you hurting us? We just want to _understand_.' Well, you can't. Even when I explain, none of you ever get it. Here's a better question: why _shouldn't_ I hurt you? Other people are so worthless to me that if I can wring even a drop of pleasure out of making them suffer and die, there's no reason not to do that. Chara's the only person I care about now, and you're trying to keep them away from me. Not even death could separate us forever, so what chance do you think _you_ have? We're two of a kind, Chara and I. I know _they'll_ understand me. You? You aren't even worth the words I've already wasted on you, and I don't want to hear anything more from you but screaming."

            With that, he starts breaking bones again. They do scream, more and more loudly as he works his way up their arms, and then fade to a desperate, high-pitched whine when he crushes their chest and it becomes too difficult for them to draw enough breath to sustain their bawling. You find that keeping their consciousness pinned is easier this time, even as he finishes with their legs and begins to shake them, setting the jagged edges of all the breaks grinding against each other. If you're being completely honest, the whimpering might be partly yours, and maybe even some of the tears, but it doesn't matter, because that dumb goat has just gone and handed you everything you need to win at your game with him.

            Knowing how much Asriel loves you fills you with determination.

            A shard of rib stabs into one of Frisk's lungs. They choke and cough, and blood pours out from their mouth to spatter the ground below in patterns like fireworks or flowers. Breathing goes from difficult to impossible, and they suffocate slowly. Still, you manage to keep them awake for several long minutes, until the lack of oxygen kills your ability to think of or focus on anything at all.

            In the void, you can barely feel Frisk's presence. They don't think. They don't struggle. They just exist, stubborn but empty. They don't even fight for control of their body when you bring them back.

            "You killed us," you inform Asriel proudly. You're on your feet again, knife in hand. "That's a foul on your part. You lose and I win."

            "Yeah, now we're tied!" For some reason, Asriel doesn't seem bothered or frustrated by that at all. "Good job, Chara! Gosh, I'd almost forgotten how much fun it is playing with you! You always think of the coolest games."

            "That isn't exactly difficult when I have such a fun toy on hand for us to use in them," you say, and feel Frisk flinch out of their daze.

            They really are just a toy now, aren't they? Not even an obstacle. You're enjoying them. Their whole life, all they've ever been good at is getting in the way, and now they can't even do _that_ when it matters. They can't bore you, or tire you out, or do anything else to outlast you.

            _Are you ready now, Frisk?_ you ask. You bring your free hand up to your face and ghost your fingertips across their cheek in a gesture of comfort. You are offering mercy. As much pleasure as you've taken in torturing them specifically, there are plenty of other humans out there to satisfy your hate. You're willing to let them go, if they want you to.

            _No._ They answer too quickly. It isn't the truth, and they know it. _Maybe. I don't know anymore. I'm so afraid. What's going to happen to me, if my soul is taken when I die?_

 _I don't have the answer to that, Frisk. No one does._ You tuck a strand of hair back behind their ear. _But it can't be any worse than continuing on like this, can it? It just about has to be better._

 _I don't know. I don't know. I just don't_ _know._

"It's almost over," you tell Asriel. "Let's end our game in a tie. I want them coherent enough to understand what I say to persuade them, but they shouldn't get to be _too_ comfortable. I trust you to find the right balance."

            "Of course! You can always count on me!" Nothing happens for a moment, and then: "Uh. Aren't you going to let them... you know, come forward? Or..?"

            "No. They aren't even _trying_ to overshadow me anymore. I'm not sure they can, as weakened as they are. Don't worry, they'll still feel whatever you do to them. I'll make sure of it."

            "But won't you feel it too?"

            "Yes, but that's fine. It's like I said: I trust you completely." Asriel frowns and stutters, clearly distressed, but doesn't manage to spit out any actual words. "Asriel, _you_ trust _me_ , don't you? Or are you doubting me again?"

            "What? No! Never again! Never, never never! I just feel a little— No. It doesn't matter. As long you're here, everything will be fine." He takes a deep breath through the massive, fleshy, oddly-oriented mouth beneath his screen, creating a gust of air strong enough to ruffle your hair and clothes. "Put your hands behind your back, okay?"

            You do, crossing your wrists without letting go of your knife. "Like this?"

            "Yeah. That's good." A vine wraps around your wrists. "Okay, so. This is going to hurt."

            You roll your eyes. "Obviously. Just get on with it, Asriel."

            He does. The vine hoists you off your feet. Your weight and the odd angle twist your shoulders up much, much further than they should go, stretching and tearing the muscles and slowly wrenching the bones from their sockets. You just barely manage to bite back a scream, and utterly fail to restrain yourself from hissing out a string of curses through gritted teeth. It's fine, though. You're fine. You're in control.

            Frisk has been very quiet for a while now. You feel them trying to bury themself, to detach from their body and just let you deal with it, but you hold them tight, sinking your awareness in like claws. _You can get out any time you want_ , you remind them. _All you have to do is agree to_ stay _out._ They don't answer, but you're so close you can practically _taste_ their building despair as it wars with their fear of the unknown.

            "You can do it, Chara!" A smooth, cool vine cups your chin, tilting your head up to look at the face on Asriel's screen. "I know you can! You've always been so strong."

            "I already know that," you snap at him. "Don't talk. It's distracting."

            "Sorry," he says quickly, and starts to pull away. You stop him by leaning your cheek against the vine and nuzzling in, just a little, to let him know that you do appreciate the gesture. You're in a lot of pain and you need to focus, but maybe a little reassurance isn't so bad. Asriel's surprised, gentle smile isn't so bad either.

            Frisk hates that he's touching them more. They hate that your knife is still clutched in their clenched, stiffened hand. Your two favorite things in the world, the very things you're clinging to right now for comfort, are just two more turns of the screws as far as they're concerned. You laugh, and it's funny enough that you keep laughing even as the laughter shakes your aching shoulders, shooting them through with fresh agony until your giggling is interlaced with screams.

            _It's never going to get better,_ you tell them, _no matter how long you hang around. It may even get worse, for you and for others. Isn't that how it's gone so far? You chose not to die where you fell, and your life since then has been nothing but struggle. You chose not to stay with Toriel or go back with the comedian, and that killed the king, and broke a few other hearts besides, and led directly to Asriel getting this strong. Then, in your frantic efforts to make it all better, you chose to let me out. You can't fix this. That should be obvious by now. But maybe if you just stop, you can keep from breaking anything else._

They can't "just stop," though. They _tried_ to stop, and it was scary and awful and wrong. The whole point of this, the one thing they've learned, is that deep down they want to live.

            _That isn't how it works, Frisk. All that fear you felt? All that regret? That wasn't some beautiful epiphany. It was pure, physical adrenaline. You fell. Humans_ hate _falling. It's always scary, no matter how much you want it. You're scared now, too. I know. I can feel it. But I can also feel how you long for rest._

You're right, of course. They know that you're right, and you know that they know, because it's their own feelings you're laying bare to them. They can't just give up, though. They _can't_. They have to at least _try_.

            _You did try. It was very brave, but very foolish. You tried so hard for so long that you wore yourself out completely. It's time to sleep, Frisk._

They want to. They do. But it's bad. They're bad to want it. _Everything_ is bad, and confusing, and painful, and they want it to stop, but stopping is bad too, and they don't know what's good anymore, if anything ever was good. They can't remember. They can't even _think_ , except in pointless circles.

            _You don't have to think. All you have to do is affirm. You'll give me your soul, and I'll put an end to your suffering. That's the deal. Just say "yes". Nothing else will happen until you do._

Time passes. It's impossible to tell how much when every second feels so horribly stretched out.

            Your lips part, then press together again. Your tongue, dry and disused, wriggles around in your mouth. Your lungs draw a deep, shuddering breath.

            "Yes," says Frisk.

            Something strange happens. You're not sure how to qualify it, even though, in a sense, you're the one _doing_ it, albeit mostly automatically. You know that, quite suddenly, you have their soul. You can feel it pulsing with vibrancy. You can feel _them_ , too, even more intimately than before, and that's the part that has you confused, because you can't tell if you're cutting their consciousness loose into the void, or simply erasing it, or something else entirely. Whatever you're doing, it's causing them to fade.

            They never really did have much. Back before all this, they were never loved, never wanted, never happy. But they were alive. They had hope, once. They had a dream of something better, something that could make them whole and real — something ill-defined and just out of reach, but they knew it would be warm and beautiful. Somewhere along the line, they lost all that.

            Nothing remains but regret.

            Nothing remains.

            Nothing.

           

            You've won!


	4. Chapter 4

            "It's over," you rasp out to Asriel. "They're dead, and I am alive. Thank you for your cooperation."

            "Yeah! Bye, idiot! And congratulations, Chara!" he sets you down gently. You wobble on your feet a little, light-headed from the pain as you are, and Asriel quickly shoots out more vines to prop you up. It's annoying that he thinks he needs to baby you like this, but at least he means well, and you're not really in any shape to argue. He takes hold of each of your dislocated arms and pops them back into place, and you only scream a little. Then you are showered with green light, and the pain subsides as though your shoulders had never been torn apart at all.

            "You've gotten better at healing magic too," you observe.

            "I have! Thanks for noticing! Like everything else, it's a lot stronger with the human souls powering it, but I've been getting lots of practice before this, too. Most people don't come back when they're killed, or at least they don't remember if they do, so you have to put in some effort if you don't want the game to end too soon."

            "It sounds like you've been having fun without me. I'm envious."

            "Nothing is really _that_ fun without you, Chara. I've just barely been staving off boredom, honest."

            "Thank you. It makes me happy to know you feel that way." You keep leaning against the vines, even though you could easily stand on your own now. It's a little bit nice, being held by someone you trust — especially someone powerful enough to rip anyone who might try to harm you to shreds in a matter of seconds. And it's a little bit thrilling, too, how you no longer feel Frisk shuddering inwardly at his touch, how you can do whatever you want with the body you've stolen from them and they can't object at all. The first time you killed a human, you just took some money off the corpse and bought yourself a nice last meal before running away. This is so much better.

            "You tired? Need to take a rest before we move on? It's safe, you know. No one will be able to get to you if I'm watching over you."

            "No thank you. I've had quite enough of rest — and not nearly enough of blood."

            "Well, if you're sure... Unfortunately, I think we're going to have to split up for this next part, unless you've thought of something I haven't. Probably the best thing is for me to cross the barrier, grab a seventh soul, then come back. But if you'd rather be the one to cross over, I can give you the king's soul and—"

            Your eyebrows go up. " _The king's_ soul, Asriel? Really?"

            "Uh, yeah? What's wrong with that?"

            "Nothing's _wrong_ , exactly. It just sounds strange, coming from you."

            Asriel looks confused for a moment. Then comprehension dawns, and he scowls. "Look. In case you haven't noticed, a lot's changed while you were gone, and the thing that's changed the most is me. Asgore and Toriel don't mean any more to me now than any of the other worn out toys in this worthless world. I'll put up with a lot from you, but you better leave _that_ alone."

            You giggle. "Ooh, scary!"

            "I am!" You giggle some more, and his scowl deepens. "I _am_ scary! The other human was terrified!"

            "Of course you are," you say, but can't keep a straight face.

            "Urgh, whatever. Anyway, like I was saying, the second option is I give the king's soul to you, and _you_ cross the barrier. I don't like that idea so much, because you'd either have to be able to harvest a soul yourself, which I don't think you know how to do, or bring back a human alive, which would probably be pretty dangerous. But if you say you can do it, I won't doubt you! And it would be kind of fun to kill the seventh human together, but you shouldn't worry about that too much, because we'll have lots of chances to do fun things together once we get to the surface anyway. So, which do you think we should do?"

            "Why break the barrier at all? I thought you wanted monsters to suffer."

            "I do! That's the joke, see? Those idiots have no idea what's waiting up there for them. So all their useless hopes are finally going to be realized... and then the humans will just slaughter them anyway! Without the power of the seven stolen souls on their side, they won't stand a chance!"

            You frown. "No. We're not doing that."

            "Huh? Why not? It'll be great!"

            "No. It won't." And here you thought Asriel was finally on the same page as you. You are very disappointed in him. "Humans shouldn't get to win a war against monsters. Humans shouldn't get to win _anything_."

            "Oh." Asriel's whole body sags — which, given how much of him there is, makes for the most exaggerated and all-encompassing slumping motion you have ever seen. "I'm sorry. I thought it was a good idea."

            "Well, it isn't," you say sternly. "Besides, how much did monsters ever _really_ want to be free? You do know that Asgore could have made it happen as soon as he had the first soul in his possession, don't you?"

            "Well, yeah, obviously! _We_ were going to make it happen with— Uh. I mean..."

            You very graciously ignore that last bit. "Exactly. So everyone else must have known too, at least on some level. But they were too cowardly to say anything. Let them reap the rewards of their cowardice and rot forever in the safety of darkness. That's the fate they deserve."

            "I guess." Asriel sounds miserable. He'll get over it. "But, wait — what about us? We can't _both_ go to the surface without breaking the barrier."

            Your usual smile reasserts itself. "We can if we kill Toriel."

            "Oh." There's an oddly startled expression on his face. "Yeah, that would work, wouldn't it?"

            "What's the matter, Asriel? Weren't you just saying she's nothing but a toy to you now?"

            "Well, yeah, but... I don't know. I guess it just kind of hit me that it's going to be for real this time, because we're not coming back to this point. Not that it matters! I don't need anyone but you! So if that's how we can get to be together on the surface, let's do it! Let's do it right now!"

            "Excellent. You're a good friend, Asriel." You stroke his vines thoughtfully while considering your next move. "Let's see. It's a long way back to the Ruins. We'll have to pass through Snowdin, where the captain of the guard and that obnoxious skeleton are. I doubt we'll be able to make it that far without word getting back to them."

            "Yeah, and Smiley Trashbag might be with them too," Asriel adds. "I never can tell what is or isn't going to motivate him to get off his bony butt and actually do something. If it's all three of them together... Well, they can't _really_ beat us, not when we can just reset, but it could get annoying."

            "You mean the other skeleton? How appropriate. I was just about to suggest a practical joke, of sorts."

            "Ooh! Tell me!"

            "Use me as a hostage."

            It takes Asriel a second to get it, but when he does, he laughs. "Oh, that's brilliant! You're amazing, Chara! Do you mind if I move you around to set it up?"

            "Just a second." You tuck your knife into your waistband. It's not exactly _safe_ , but the poor thing is dulled enough by time and use as a gardening tool that it's not terribly dangerous, either. "All right, go ahead."

            He plucks you off the ground and sets you down on your feet on top of the monitor that serves as his head. The vines all stay wrapped around you, tugging and prodding. "Uh, sorry about that. I can't see you when you're up there, so I need to do this by feel."

            "I don't mind." He pulls your arms together in front of you and binds your wrists, the vine snapping off from his body once he has it securely tied. "It's more effective if you do it in back," you point out to him. "Like this, I could bring my hands up to my mouth and chew my way free."

            "Well, yeah. It's not supposed to be 'effective'. It's just for show."

            "Obviously, but part of that is looking convincing. Though I _do_ like that I'll be able to get to my knife if I have to, this way. Hm." You consider it for a moment. "I know: use one of the thornier ones. No one will think about how well I'm restrained if they're too busy worrying that their 'friend' is in pain."

            "I don't know about that, Chara. It sounds unnecessary to me."

            "Come _on,_ Asriel. Just leave the smoother ones there to cushion the thorns, and I'll have my sweater too. I should be high enough up that no one will notice I'm not bleeding. If you're going to break off parts of yourself for this, I can handle getting poked a little."

            Asriel sighs, and the heaving of his body beneath your feet causes you to stumble slightly. "Fine," he says peevishly, and loosely wraps your arms up in thorns. Just as you suspected, you don't feel much, but it _looks_ impressively torturous. "Okay, almost ready." Another vine drops over your head and snares your neck like a noose. "There. You feel all right standing on your own? I can break that off instantly if you fall, so you should be safe. I won't let you get hurt."

            "I trust you," you tell him, and you're a little amazed at how true that is. You would never do something like this with anyone else. You couldn't.

            The vines holding you up withdraw. Asriel lurches into motion, pulling himself forward across the ground with his long, clawed arms and supporting the mess of metal tubing that makes up most of his body on a tread formed from plant matter. For a moment, you almost lose your footing, but you recover quickly.

            Remembering that he can't see you right now, you whip one of the thorns studding your wrists across your face and carve a gash into your cheek. It's a bit of a shame that no one who cared for Frisk will ever know the full horror of what they went through before they died, but you can at least show that they were beaten. Most monsters are so soft that a splash of blood and a dead-eyed stare will be enough to break their hearts.

            The most difficult part will be keeping yourself from laughing.


	5. Chapter 5

            Everything is almost too wonderful. You are dizzyingly high up and unsteady on your feet, your face is stinging and bloodied as though you were just in a fight, Asriel could snap your neck instantly with the slightest flick of a vine — and, somehow, you are completely safe. You don't know a word for this feeling, this impossible combination of thrill and comfort, but you want to keep feeling it forever.

            No one else is as safe as you are. Asriel descends from the parapets of the castle into the streets of New Home in a motion halfway between rappelling down the wall with his vines and simply jumping from it as though it were a single oversized stair. He makes sure to hold you steady through the jolt, and at the same time fires into the throngs of monsters too curious or too stupid to run for their lives instead of standing around gawking. The dust sprays thick enough to make your eyes water and your nose itch.

            The elevator to Hotland is still out of order, but it would be too small for your purposes even if it were operational. Asriel demolishes it and tears up the ground around the shaft with his claws, then drops down into the wreckage of MTT Hotel as rising dust mixes with the debris of the fallen ceiling. Hotland itself is less of a nuisance to navigate with Asriel's body large enough to bridge the gaps between platforms. Waterfall's tight corridors and low archways break around him rather than hindering him. Everywhere you go, the monsters you encounter either scatter before him or _get_ scattered by a hail of bullets. He's unstoppable, and he is _yours_ , so you are unstoppable too.

            Just as you anticipated, things get interesting when you reach Snowdin. The captain of the guard and the marginally more annoying of the skeleton brothers await you at the east entrance of town.

            "Human! Are you—?" the skeleton starts to call out to you when he sees you — knowing him, he's probably about to say something inane, like asking if you're all right — but the captain holds up her hand and he falls silent.

            There is cold hatred in her eyes as she glares at Asriel, and she isn't smiling. If you hadn't seen her earlier today, you might not believe that she even _can_ smile. "Who the heck are you, and what exactly do you think you're doing?" she demands.

            "It doesn't really matter who I am, and I think it's pretty obvious what I'm doing," Asriel answers smugly. "It'd probably be more useful to ask what I'm _going_ to do." For a moment, nothing happens. "Well, aren't you going to ask?" He shakes you gently, and you stumble and choke as though he were yanking you around by the throat.

            "You don't have to do that!" the skeleton shouts, panic creeping into his voice. "You have the full, undivided attention of the Royal Guard — and also myself!"

            "What are you _going_ to do?" the captain seethes through gritted teeth.

            "Well, that depends!" Asriel chirps. "If you stand aside, I'll just be on my way to the Ruins. I've got some business there that doesn't concern you. But if you try to stop me..." A tangle of thorns presses against your back, prodding you forward until you're standing with your heels on the edge of his screen and your toes hovering unsupported. The noose pulls taut enough to lift your chin. A sensation like an electric pulse shoots down your spine and fires off fluttery little sparks in your stomach. You aren't exactly scared, but it doesn't take much acting to look like you are. "...I'll let you live _just_ long enough to watch the brat get their neck stretched."

            The captain takes a deep breath and pulls herself up as tall as she can — which would normally be quite intimidatingly tall. Compared to Asriel, though, she's nothing but a toy soldier. "I can shoot the vine out." She sounds like she's trying to convince herself.

            "And I can kill them a dozen other ways before they hit the ground," says Asriel. "Which might do the job all on its own anyhow." He waits a beat for a response, and, when he doesn't get one, continues, "You know, you might just be the biggest idiot in the whole Underground. And that's saying a lot, because Papyrus is _really_ stupid, but at least he can live up to his dumb ideals if he's willing to die for them. Actively protecting everyone is a lot harder than not doing any harm. In fact, sometimes it's just plain impossible. Like right now! What are you going to do, Undyne? Stand aside, or stand and fight? No matter what you choose, someone innocent will die. So what are you going to do? What are you going to _do_?"

            The captain does neither. She does nothing at all. She simply stands paralyzed, her eye flicking up and down in deep and desperate thought. You try to look as pathetic as possible while silently counting the seconds for which she allows useless indecision to consume her.

            When you reach five, Asriel levels his side-mounted flamethrowers at her and fires.

            She's still screaming when the streams of flame sputter out, which is honestly a little impressive. Her metal armor glows with lingering heat, and she's on her knees, and her blackened flesh is glopping off like dribbles of candle wax, but she isn't dead yet.

            "Oh, yeah — did I mention there was a time limit on that question?" Asriel asks.

            The skeleton runs toward her, and somehow, in spite of everything, she has enough presence of mind to shove him out of the way before the second blast hits. This time, the screams die off with the fire, and nothing remains but a lump of molten metal speckled with clumps of powder that might be either ash or dust.

            It's funny because she never could handle heat very well. Your shoulders shake with suppressed laughter, but you bow your head to hide your smile, and the giggles that manage to escape your attempts at smothering them could just as easily be sobs.

            The skeleton actually is sobbing. You aren't looking, but you can hear it loud and clear. Asriel rotates his body slightly and then starts trundling forward again, toward the trees that line the path. He can easily bulldoze his way through them, you suppose. Not that he couldn't just bulldoze the skeleton instead, but you don't really care either way.

            "Wait!" the skeleton shouts. He runs in front of Asriel and plants himself in your way: feet squared beneath his shoulders, arms held out at his sides, like he thinks he can actually make his flimsy body into any kind of barrier at all. "What are you so angry about? If you just tell me, I'm sure I can help you find a way to fix it that isn't so... this!"

            "Get out of my way, Papyrus," says Asriel. There's something weird in his voice. "I'm not gonna tell you again."

            "I..." The skeleton looks around desperately, as though this were a puzzle he could find a solution to somewhere in the surrounding environment. "I, the great Papyrus..." Suddenly, his face snaps forward again, and he grins at Asriel and puffs out his chest like he's just had the best idea ever. "I, the great Papyrus... _will_ get out of your way! As soon as you hand over the human!"

            "Uh," says Asriel. You can practically _hear_ him blinking in confusion. "Okay, I'm curious enough to ask: what exactly makes you think you're in any position to be making demands here?"

            "It is not a demand! It is a friendly, humble request! You took them hostage so that Undyne and I would not fight you, correct? Well, if you hand them over, I won't fight you! Because you will have demonstrated that you can make good decisions, and once you've made one, it will be easier to make more in the future! So, there's no reason for you to hold onto them any longer!" He's shaking. Despite the cold and the fact that he has no skin or glands, you think you can see a few drops of sweat rolling down his face. Still, his hopeful smile stays fixed in place.

            Asriel laughs, but it's different this time. It's the way people laugh when they don't actually find something funny but are trying to convince themselves that they do. "Classic Papyrus. I guess you still had a few surprises left in you after all, huh? You know, I think I'm actually going to miss you a little." Before the skeleton can respond, Asriel reaches out an arm and squashes him like a bug. When he lifts his hand again, there's a smear of pale dust coating his green skin and a tangle of red fabric caught on his thorns. He plucks the scarf off with a vine and tosses it to the side, but a few scraps stay stuck to him. You could almost swear you feel him heave a sigh beneath your feet before he sets off again, but it could just be his large body lurching back into motion.

            You don't meet anyone else in Snowdin, though whether they've fled into the woods or holed up in their homes, you couldn't say. You aren't terribly surprised by that, but you are a little surprised by what you find waiting for you just beyond the west entrance.

            Standing in the center of the road with her head bowed and her hands folded calmly in front of her, Toriel blocks the way. "My children," she says, her voice gentle but strong enough to carry clearly all the way up to you, "I am so, so sorry."

            Beneath your feet, Asriel jolts backward as though slapped. Your reaction is less dramatic, but you can feel the same shock pricking your heart. Does she..?

            "Do you... know what's going on here?" Asriel asks, echoing your own thoughts.

            "I know enough. Something worse than any of us has taken the power we killed for and turned it against us. I suppose that now we will reap what we have sown. It could almost be justice, if the souls of innocent children were not still being used as weapons."

            You can feel Asriel relax, but your own shoulders tense. Of course: the souls. She was speaking to the souls. As though any of them could still hear her. That should be funny, shouldn't it? So why does it make you almost angry?

            "Who cares about them? They're dead!" Asriel taunts her, his voice oddly joyless. "They were already pretty broken when I first absorbed them, but they did struggle a little. The more I used their power for myself, though, the more I overwrote them. By this point, there isn't even enough of them left to suffer. So why don't you just forget about them, like you forgot about—!"

            " _Enough_ ," Toriel says, and though her voice is quieter than his, it's sharp enough to cut off his ranting. "You've come for my soul, have you not? You're headed for the Ruins. What else there is worth taking? Do you wish to cross the barrier without breaking it? Did Asgore's escape your grasp? Do it, then. I am so very tired of all of this."

            "Right," says Asriel. "Fine. I can do this. I've done it before. I can _do_ this."

            A few seconds pass. You start to think he might be lying. Then you feel him jerk beneath you. What he does, he does so quickly that you see nothing but a blur, until suddenly Toriel is slumped over, impaled by a dozen thorny vines through her chest and neck and stomach and arms.

            For a moment, the look on her face is one of shock. Then she lifts her head — slowly, shakily, though the rest of her body has gone so limp that you don't know how she has the strength — and smiles directly at you. "My child," she says, and dust rises from her mouth as she speaks, just as it does from her wounds. "I am sorry you had to see this. Do not fear. You _will_ be safe. You may not see me again, but I shall always be with you." Then her head falls forward, and she vanishes in a cloud of dust.

            Her soul remains behind, gleaming and white. Asriel's vines reach for it, then suddenly freeze. At first you think he is hesitating out of weakness, but it takes you only a moment to realize that the whole world has gone just as still and silent. With a high, clear _ping_ , Toriel's soul turns blue and flies at you with startling speed. It slams into your chest, and as you absorb it, your mind clouds over with confusion and horror and deep, alien sorrow. Something flashes above your head, and the vine around your neck slackens with a _snap_. Then you are yanked through the air by some unseen force and dropped roughly onto the ground behind a copse of trees.

            A bony hand grips your shoulder and pulls you to your feet. "Come on, kid," says a familiarly annoying voice. "Let's move."


	6. Chapter 6

            The comedian drags you forward, and every stumbling step you take touches down on a different sort of ground. The world around you changes so quickly that its features bleed into each other until they're incomprehensible. Your head hurts. There's something heavy in your chest. You aren't all right, and you don't even understand why.

            "Where are you taking me?" you ask.

            "Barrier," the comedian answers, huffing and panting with effort. His hand feels clammy where it brushes up against your neck. "We're getting you out."

            "Why?"

            "'S what the lady wanted. Probably won't make much of a difference, but I try to do right by people where I can, y'know?"

            You are so tired. There's something in your heart that's a little like regret and a little like despair, and it's horribly disorienting until you realize where it's coming from.

            _How very clever of you, Toriel_ , you think. _This might even have worked, if that child you cared for so weren't already dead._

            She doesn't answer. You rather doubt she can. She isn't as separate from you as Frisk was. They fought like cornered prey against being consumed, but your strong and vital human soul is already consuming the frail, weak thing that Toriel had. It's not so much a struggle as it is a case of spiritual indigestion — and it flares up even more as you recall how you broke Frisk down into nothingness.

            How you _and Asriel_ broke them down. _Isn't it a little funny that everyone you loved most turned out to be a murderer? I wonder what's wrong with you._

The strange, foreign misery builds to such a crescendo that tears sting your eyes and a wailing sob bubbles out from your chest. Then, all at once, it dissipates, releasing like a knot in your shoulder when you dig your fingers into the muscle just past the point that the pain should be unbearable. You feel suddenly clean and light inside, like you've just won a particularly intense fistfight.

            You really are very good at this.

            "I know, kid," says the comedian, like he thinks _you_ were the one crying just now. "I know. But look: we're here." He comes to a stop so suddenly that you almost topple forward. The near-blinding light of the barrier pulses around you both.

            "If you're this powerful," you say, "couldn't you just tesseract up to the surface?"

            "You mean take a shortcut? Nah, doesn't work like that. I can bend physics a little, under the right conditions, but the barrier is more than just physical."

            Interesting. So, if you go through the barrier, he won't be able to follow you — but Asriel will, once he figures out where you've gotten to. That might be your lowest risk option here. This comedian is clearly very strong, and fighting him probably won't end well.

            But can you really just let him get away with tearing you from Asriel like that? Let him go on thinking he's scored some sort of victory here? What are you, afraid of him?

            No. Maybe you can't fight him, but that doesn't mean you can't kill him. You have some advantages, and you are going to use them.

            "Sans..." You hold out your bound arms to him. "It hurts."

            "Yikes. Yeah, uh, hold on just a sec, lemme find something to cut through that. Don't think any of my magic will work too well here."

            "What about this?" You fish your knife out of your waistband and hand it to him. He uses it to saw through the vines, then unthinkingly hands it back to you. Now your hands are free and your weapon is drawn, and the comedian doesn't seem to have put his guard up about either of those things.

            "All right, kid," he says, lightly slapping your back to push you toward the barrier. "Time to move."

            "I can't just leave." You know exactly how this is supposed to feel. Frisk was good for that, at least. "He'll hurt you."

            "Don't count me out just yet. I'll make him work for it." He winks at you. "Even if that means _I_ have to work, too. Imagine that, huh? Guess he must have really made me angry."

            "He hurt so many people."

            "Kid..."

            "He hurt _me_!" You dig deep into your memories of how Frisk experienced those drawn-out hours leading up to their death and make yourself burst into tears. "He hurt me until I stopped struggling, and then he used me to hurt other people."

            "Kid, come on. You need to go home."

            "I don't want to go home! I don't even want to be alive anymore!" Between sobbing and choking back laughter, breathing has gotten a little bit difficult. You let yourself sink to your knees to conserve energy. "I'm sorry. I must look so stupid and weak. I know this—" you touch the gash on your cheek "—is _nothing_. But most of the marks are gone now. He tore me up until I thought I was going to die, and then fixed me so he could do it again."

            The skeleton's eyes go dark like they did when he threatened Frisk. For a second you get a sense that he might be on to you, and you flinch back from him without thinking. It's a mistake that works out well for you; he flinches too, and then his whole posture changes as though he's trying to make himself look smaller and less threatening. So close. You are so very, very close.

            "If I go, I'll be alone again. I don't want to be alone. I don't. I'm so afraid. I—"

            There. The comedian leans down and wraps his arms around you. You hug him back — and drive the blade of your knife into his spine.

            You quickly stand and jump back out of his reach in case he has enough strength left to retaliate, though it soon becomes clear that he doesn't. The moment you stop holding him up, he falls forward at your feet.

            "What the hell?" he chokes out, coughing on dust. He sounds more surprised than anything. "I don't get it. What did I miss this time?"

            "An awful lot, apparently." You can feel your pulse fluttering, wild and warm. It's been so, _so_ long since you last got to actually strike someone — or, at least, someone you weren't sharing a body with. "I would very much like to explain it all, but unfortunately, you won't live long enough to hear it. I'll give you a clue, though: I wasn't _exactly_ lying. I was just... speaking for someone who is no longer with us. Someone you weren't _entirely_ wrong to trust."

            "The kid." There's that look of cold fury again. Poor monster, he's _just_ clever enough to get himself hurt. "What did you do to them?"

            As if you could even begin to make him understand how much they suffered. All you can manage is to laugh.

            He makes a grab for your ankle, but you dance out of the way, still laughing. "So that's how it is, huh? I couldn't even protect someone immortal from being murdered?" Your smile is all the answer he needs. "Ha. What a joke." The hand reaching for you collapses into dust, followed by everything attached.

            Still giggling, you make your way into the garden and flop down on the throne. Going out to find Asriel doesn't seem worth the effort and possible danger. You know perfectly well that he's looking all over for you by now, and there's no chance you'll miss each other as long as you just stay put. You may as well take a break.

            The garden throne room has changed more from how you remember it than any other part of the castle, leaving aside the basement that's been unceremoniously converted into a crypt. There's that stupid covered chair in the corner, for one thing. If you were in the king's place, you'd have chopped it up for firewood a long time ago. More importantly, though, where there used to be neat rows of many different kinds of herbs, there is now a half-wild field of your golden flowers.

            They're all over the underground now, those flowers. They seem to have entirely displaced the variety of buttercup that used to grow here. That's a little bit funny, because if things had been like that from the beginning, it's possible that none of this would have happened. Your flowers have little enough poison in them that they're perfectly safe to consume when dried out and boiled for tea, which is why you thought stuffing Asgore's pie with disgustingly bitter petals would be a harmless prank. Of course, you also weren't counting on him eating the whole thing in spite of how obviously wrong it tasted, out of some weird sense of courtesy or obligation or something. You still can't believe he actually bought that you didn't know what a cup of butter is. Asriel might be that dumb, but you aren't.

            Well, now he's dead. Toriel's dead too. You're still not quite sure how you feel about that. You didn't hate them, not by a long shot. But they were in your way, so what could you do? And now you have Asriel all to yourself, and he'll never second-guess you because of his stupid parents' stupid rules ever, ever again.

            It's so peaceful here, with the filtered sunlight and the distant birdsong and the aroma of flowers and cut grass. You may be in danger of falling asleep. Maybe if that's where this is headed anyway, you should just go back to your room of the castle and curl up in your old bed. Or Asriel's old bed — which was basically your bed too, as often as you used to sneak into it. On nights that got too cold, you'd crawl in next to him and demand that he put aside whichever dumb stuffed animal he was clinging to and hold you instead. And he always did.

            You think you might come to miss how warm and soft he used to be, but that was never the most important thing about him. What matters is that he's Asriel. Before him, no one else had ever placed any real value on your choices and desires. No one else had ever wanted you for everything that you are without pretending or forcing you to pretend. No one else had ever touched you when and how you wanted, no more and no less. No one else...

            You only notice you've dozed off when a sudden loud noise awakens you so violently that you jump clear out of your chair. Then it sounds a second time, and you realize that it's Asriel shouting your name. You race out of the throne room and onto the parapets to find him methodically pulling apart buildings in the city below.

            "Up here, you dumb goat!" you call down, leaning your arms on the balustrade and your chin on the backs of your hands.

            "Chara!" He swivels around and treads over to you as hastily as his awkwardly large form will allow. "Are you okay?"

            "Obviously."

            "I was so worried!" A rustling blanket of leafy vines wraps around you, clinging and desperately possessive. You might be imagining things, but you think the tight pink skin around his organic eyes looks a little bit wetter than usual. Maybe some things never change. You're not sure you'd want them to. "What happened?"

            "The— what did you call him, again? The trashbag grabbed me. I... hm." You try and fail to keep a straight face. "I took him out."

            Asriel's cartoon jaw drops clear off the screen. "Really? You beat _him_ on your first try? Holy crud, Chara! I mean, I knew you were awesome, but... wow. Wow! Wait, weren't your hands still tied then? They must have been, at least for the start of the fight, right? What the heck? How is it even possible for anyone to be _that_ cool?"

            "Mm." You just smile enigmatically and try not to laugh. You _could_ disillusion him, but why would you want to?

            "I kind of wish you'd left some for me. I mean, that's pretty near impossible with that weirdo, so I don't blame you or anything. But I want so, so badly to make him pay for this." A pillow of soft leaves cradles your wounded cheek. "Feelings are weird. I sure never thought that being able to lo... uh... feel c-certain..." He coughs. From his speaker. There is definitely no biological reason he would ever need to do that. "I sure didn't think that having a soul again would ever make me want to hurt someone _more_!"

            You could play some very cruel jokes on him right now, but you're in too good of a mood for that. "Can you heal it?"

            "Yeah, sure! Scar, or no scar?"

            "If I have a choice, why would I want a scar?"

            "I dunno, because it might look kind of cool?"

            You can't help rolling your eyes. "No. That's weird. You're weird."

            "H-hey! It's not like _I_ want to think about the time I let someone snatch you away from me whenever I look at you! I just thought you should get a say in it, that's all!" You see a soft green glow out of the corner of your eye. The stinging and throbbing in your face fades away to nothing, and you lean appreciatively into Asriel's grip. You are perfectly capable of handling a little bit of pain and blood, just like you are perfectly capable of sleeping in the cold. But you can't deny that it's nice not to have to.

            "Thank you, Asriel," you say. "I am so very glad that I have you."

            "I'm glad I have you, too," he answers, and you don't feel nearly as threatened by it as you once might have. You don't really mind belonging to Asriel, because you know he has no interest in controlling you. All he seems to want from you is for you to stay close to him, and as long as he gives you what _you_ want from _him,_ you have no problem with that at all.

            On the topic of what you want from him, you say, "We can pass through the barrier now. You're not going to have any difficulties climbing back up here, are you?"

            "Nope! Just stand clear, okay?" You do. With a mass of thorny vines like ropes anchored to alarmingly sharp red grappling hooks, he pulls himself up onto the parapet and then follows you back to the barrier.

            If the humans of your village thought he was frightening when he looked like an oversized goat, you can't wait to hear their screams when they see this.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nearing the end now. Possibly the next chapter will be the finale, or possibly there will be one more after it.
> 
> There's a new miscellaneous tag with a new warning. You may want to check it before reading on.

            As it turns out, though, your village doesn't exist anymore. You notice almost as soon as you pass through the barrier: there in the crook of the spur where it ought to be, you see high-rises stretching tall enough to rival the mountains themselves. _High-rises_! If those are apartment buildings, any one of them could house half the population of the small town you grew up in.

            Just how long were you asleep? Have humans been this busy all over the world? How much has the rot spread since you first fumbled the chance to eradicate it once and for all?

            And how many of the people who hurt you died peacefully in their beds long ago, now forever safe from retribution? All of them? Despite everything, are you still that powerless?

            "Hey, are you all right?" Asriel asks, and you become alert to the fact that your knees have sagged and your arms have latched on to the closest part of him they could reach, even though that part is covered in thorns sharp enough to poke at you through your sweater and lacerate your bare hands.

            "I want them all dead," you rasp. Your mouth has gone dry, almost as though all the moisture from it has been sucked up into the pools beneath your eyelids. You won't let it spill over. You refuse.

            "They will be, real soon!"

            "I want them to be afraid. I want them to know that they aren't in control anymore. _I_ am in control!" But you aren't even in control of your own babbling. Pathetic. The moment you so much as stand under the same sky as humans, you're this weak and useless.

            You can't let them see you like this. Even if they aren't the same ones, you can't let them have that victory. The resolve fills you with determination, and you force yourself to stand up straight. _As though even your full height could intimidate anyone,_ you start to think, but kill that thought before you can wallow in it. You'll cut through the muscles in their legs. You'll bash in their kneecaps. You'll tie them to chairs and shove them crashing to the ground. There are so many ways you can have them at your feet. The familiar daydreams soothe your nerves like gulps of warm, honeyed tea.

            "Seriously, Chara, what's wrong?" Asriel sounds genuinely alarmed. Anyone else would be mocking you, wouldn't they? _You_ would be mocking you. "Are you still hurt from fighting the trashbag?"

            "No, it isn't that. It's just..." You make yourself smile, even if it's maybe a little wan, a little self-deprecating. "Well, let's call it performance anxiety."

            Asriel laughs, but it's not a cruel laugh. "Yeah, fair enough! It's a big day for both of us, isn't it?"

            "Indeed. We'd best get to it. Won't you carry me down the mountain?"

            "Sure!" He lifts you up and deposits you in one of the loops of thick metal tubing that form the "flower" around his face. You perch with your legs dangling and hug tight to his enormous, stupidly-shaped head. He's surprisingly warm, and there's something nostalgic about the texture. It's not quite like human skin, more like the inside surface of the floppy goat ears you used to love to tug on and poke at. "Brace yourself so you don't fall, okay?" he tells you, so you do. And if maybe you press the front of your face against the side of his in a way that could be interpreted as something like a kiss on the cheek... Well. It's not like _Asriel_ is going to have the guts to question you about it.

            Asriel trundles down the mountain like a tank: slow but implacable, somewhat erratic in the plunges he takes but resilient enough that it doesn't matter. Neither of you even notices the car on the road beneath you until he drops down on top of it with a loud _crunch_. Asriel makes a pained sound, like he's just stepped barefooted on a metal jack. You double over giggling.

            Then you hear the screams, and your laughter dies in your lungs as your heart speeds up so much that you have trouble drawing enough breath to keep pace with it. There is something still alive in there. Something human.

            Asriel rummages through the wreckage with his vines and fishes it out of the back seat. Fishes _them_ out? No. It. _It_ is so, so far beneath what you have become. That's why _they_ used to call _you_ that: because you were beneath them. Or, anyway, they thought you were.

            You'll show them.

            It looks maybe a couple years bigger than you. Long hair you can wrap your hand in and pull and _hurt_. Stupid, stupid ribbon around its neck, too tight for anyone with sense, like an invitation to hook your finger under and twist until you hear gagging. Sweater's yellow. So is the shining soul Asriel summons forth with a whip-like strike across its chest.

            "Look, Chara!" he says. "It's our favorite color!"

            "Let me do it!" You can't hide the desperation in your voice, and you don't care. "Please, Asriel! I want this so much. You got to do most of the others so far. Just let me have this one!"

            "Aw, don't make it sound like you think I'm gonna hold out on you! You know me better than that, right?" He helps you down to the ground and dangles your new toy in front of you by its wrists, stretching its arms above its head so that its feet barely touch the ground. You can see blood soaking into the cuffs of its sleeves just below the bonds. "Do it. I want to know _you_ better. I want to see everything that you have inside of you! Creatures like us can't help but understand each other, so there's nothing you need to hide from me!"

            The human squirms around in its restraints, trying to twist its head back over its shoulder to avoid letting Asriel out of its sight. You seize its chin, crushing its face between your fingers until you can feel the bone of its jaw. "Eyes on me," you command. " _I'm_ the one who's going to kill you."

            It obliges, shooting you a glare full of anger mixed with — and yet, somehow, not at all diluted by — terror. Then, it kicks you. You lose your grip on its head and stumble back a couple steps, laughing giddily at the familiar sensation of bruises blooming where you've been struck. It wants so badly to pretend it isn't helpless. You understand that perfectly: the worst thrashing in the world is endurable as long as you can cling to some semblance of control. Once you take that away, this human will crumble in your hands.

            It attempts to kick you again, but you grab its leg with your off-hand and stab your knife into the hollow under its knee. You twist in deeper and saw at the tendons, listening with interest to how the not-quite-melody of its screams responds to the rhythm you set with your blade. Then you apparently hit something important, because the whole limb spasms violently before suddenly going slack. You let it slip through your blood-slicked hands and watch it fall uselessly limp. The human struggles to balance on its one good foot and keep its weight off its thorn-impaled wrists. It won't be trying _that_ trick again. You quickly close what little distance it managed to put between you.

            The human hasn't given up yet, though. You catch it drawing its head back in time to guess what's coming, and duck your own head so that it only succeeds in bashing its nose against your skull. When you look up again, you can almost see the stars swirling in its dazed eyes. "Wow, are you _trying_ to hurt yourself?" you ask, just barely managing to gasp the words out through your laughter. Tangling a fist in its hair, you yank its head back until its chin is sticking up almost parallel to its neck. "Please, allow _me_!" You lift your knife-hand above its face, then smash the pommel down on the bridge of its nose. Blood bubbles up as though from a spring and trickles back down its throat. It tries to cough, but the angle is all wrong. You hold its head like that a bit longer, letting it choke and wondering if you can make it drown in its own blood if you just don't let go.

            "Does it really end like _this_?" it asks suddenly, staring into the sky. Its voice sounds thick and hoarse, like the voice of someone with a cold, but you suppose that it's probably not drowning if it can still talk. "Just... monsters and murderers out of nowhere, for no reason at all?"

            "I'm afraid so," you tell it.

            "Why? _How_? I didn't do anything wrong, or even unusual!"

            "Wrong place at the wrong time, I suppose. It's enough for me that you exist."

            It pulls against your grip a little, wincing as it does, to tilt its face toward the wreckage of the car. "Can't you at least let me go say goodbye to them?"

            "Why? There's nothing in that scrap heap but tenderized meat. Whoever 'they' are, 'they' aren't there anymore. But don't worry: if they're anywhere at all, you'll be with them soon."

            "No they won't!" Asriel chimes in suddenly. A vine circles possessively around the yellow soul, and the human groans in pain at his touch.

            "Oh, right, I almost forgot!" You fail to stifle a giggle. "Oh well, I guess there really is no upside here. My apologies for the false hope." With that, you flip your knife around in your hand and shove the blade down deep into the human's exposed neck. There's a minute or so of gasping and gurgling, then the body goes still and limp and the soul comes loose in Asriel's grasp.

            All at once, the world around you is swallowed up in brilliant white light. You're so high on adrenaline that at first you think it might all be in your head, that your senses have gotten mixed up and your brain is trying to interpret the pure, bright ecstasy of conquest as a vision. Then you see him: your Asriel. Soft, sweet Asriel, with ears just begging to be pulled on and a snout just begging to be kissed. He looks at you, smiles, waves — and then changes.

            You remember this form. It's the body that both of you died in. The wistfulness that hits you along with that memory is fleeting, because you _know_ you will do better this time. This is how he _should_ look for redemption day. And even aside from that, if you're being honest with yourself, it's how you like for him to look. He's big and strong and threatening enough to serve your purposes, and yet soft and warm and floppy-eared and very recognizably the boy you've maybe always loved.

            You run toward him, and trip over the carcass in your haste. Asriel catches you before you hurt yourself. Now, on top of everything else, your heart is in your throat from the short scare of falling. Your pulse is so warm and fast and forceful that you feel like your wrists and temples and neck and chest might all just explode at once. You're so happy in this moment that you might even be a little okay with that, except that you have so much left to do. You laugh and laugh and laugh and turn your face up to kiss the underside of Asriel's chin, not even caring how much of his stupid fur you get in your mouth.

            Then he goes and ruins it by letting go of you and flinching back. What's he playing at? You know perfectly well that he loves you and has always been grateful for every little touch you deign to give him, even the not-so-nice teasingly aggressive sort of touches.

            "S-sorry," Asriel stammers, apparently seeing the annoyance on your face. "I didn't mean to, I swear! It's just... Uh... No, you know what? I'm not gonna make it weird. Just forget about it, okay? We finally have each other back for real! No one else matters!" He reaches out to you again.

            Before he can pull you into another hug, a thought occurs to you. You reach out to him too, and cup his chin in your hand. You can feel him tense up, and probably not in the way that he would if he were just wondering if you were going to kiss him. Interesting.

            "Still suffering?" you ask. "Still afraid of me?"

            "Oh no," says Asriel, in a tone of voice that leaves you certain he's blushing under his fur. "Don't _talk_ to her! That's really weird, Chara!"

            "Why? You talked to Frisk."

            "Who's Frisk?"

            Oh, that's right: he never even knew their name. "Nothing important!" you answer cheerfully. "Nothing at all, really! It's like you said: no one else matters. You could never have felt like _this_ about _them_ , so who cares?" You let go of his face and lean your head against his chest. "If I'd known it was going to give you this much trouble," you murmur, "I'd have kept on playing with it until it was _really_ broken. But I suppose it's up to you now. Didn't you say you destroyed the others just by using their power until it was your own?"

            "Pretty much? I think that's what happened, anyway."

            "Hm." You turn your head to look out at the city, and it occurs to you that you never even noticed when the blinding glow around you faded. You were too focused on Asriel, even independently of whether he was _literally_ the only thing you could see. "I can think of one way we could replicate that condition."

            "Yeah, me too," says Asriel, wrapping his arms around you. "Let's turn 'em all to dust, me and you."

            "Normally I'd say something about humans not working that way. But with power like yours, I think they just might."

            He laughs appreciatively at your joke. "Hey, Chara, have you ever wanted to fly?"

            "I can't say it's particularly high on the list of superpowers I would like to have. But yes, I have entertained the thought occasionally."

            "Haha, aw! Nerd! Buzzkill! Buzzkill nerd!" You're almost annoyed, but he's not even trying to conceal the affection in his voice, so you let it slide just this once. "Anyway, hold on tight."

            You do. The ground drops out from beneath your feet, and the two of you rocket toward the very sky that's been denied to you for eons.


	8. Chapter 8

            Flying, it turns out, feels enough like falling to be more terrifying than fun. Maybe it's different when you're in control — most things are — but since you aren't in control at all, you cling to Asriel with all the dignity of a baby monkey and refrain from screaming mainly out of breathlessness. You try looking down over your shoulder just to prove to yourself that you can, and it's not even the vertigo that gets you; it's the cold-as-steel wind cutting into your face. Between your hair whipping across your eyes and the tears that cloud over your vision — for entirely physical reasons! — you can't see the ground anyway. You promptly turn your head back and bury your face in Asriel's chest, leeching off his warmth to keep your teeth from chattering.

            It can't be over quickly enough, but at least it's over _fairly_ quickly. The wind fades to a gentle breeze, gravity reorients itself around you into something more familiar, and, finally, your feet touch the ground. When you look around you, you're in a strange park surrounded by strange buildings. You almost can't believe you're in the right place at all, until you glance down at your feet.

            The flowerbed. The very same one. It's still here, and you and Asriel are standing right in the center of it.

            "They're here," says Asriel, and you feel his grip tighten around you — protectively, you think at first, but then something in the tension makes you wonder if he isn't clinging to you _for_ protection.

            They most certainly _are_ here: humans, all around you, some hanging back at a distance, others cautiously creeping closer. You hear their voices rise up, mixed to incoherence, whispering questions to each other or shouting them at you. Some of them point things in your direction: strange small things strapped to their wrists like watches, or held out unfolded like very thin books, or gripped like flashlights or laser pointers. They might be weapons, or they might just be cameras, but you aren't curious enough to wait to find out firsthand.

            "Do it," you tell Asriel. "Show me how much stronger you've really gotten."

            You feel him shudder and hear his breathing quicken, and he clutches you so tightly and with such a seeming lack of self-awareness that you are afraid he might break your spine. "I..."

            It won't happen again. Not after everything you've just been through together. He wouldn't do that to you. He can't. "Asriel, what are you waiting for?"

            "I..." He leans his face down into your hair and sobs.

            Some of the encroaching humans are little more than an arm's length away. If any of those little toys of theirs are guns, they'll be shooting you point-blank as soon as they realize that the blood you're covered in isn't your own — or shooting Asriel if they think that it is. You can't take all of them with your knife, but you could at least go down swinging. Except you can't, because Asriel has you trapped, and you try to wriggle free but you can't do that either, but you can't go through this again, you can't, you can't, you can't—

            "Asriel, don't let them hurt me!" you scream.

            Asriel screams wordlessly back, and the world around you goes white. The nearest humans also scream — just for a fraction of a second, before they disintegrate in the piercing light.

            The glow around you resolves into a strange shape, and though it's hard to tell from inside of it, you can guess from the patches of relative darkness and your memories of the imaginary attacks Asriel used to describe in your games what it is: Hyper Goner, the goat-skull black hole.

            There is suddenly a _lot_ of screaming, and absolutely none of it is yours _or_ his.

            You can see through the skull's eyes and nostrils and gaping mouth all the things and people flying toward you, the limbs flailing stupidly in the air, the sprays of blood from those struck hard enough by debris to die before they get close, and the crushing, cleansing, scattered ends of those that reach you mostly intact. They really do turn to dust, and the dust glitters in the magic light before dispersing into invisibly miniscule particles.

            Your breathing slows to a comfortable quickness. Your pulse is fast but light. You're in the eye of the storm at the end of the world, warm and safe in Asriel's arms. You can't imagine anything more peaceful. You laugh, and he laughs with you — a quiet, cautious chuckle to underscore your giggling. He isn't squeezing you hard enough to hurt anymore.

            _No one_ is hurting you anymore. No one can.

            Once the screams have died off, Asriel allows his attack to dissipate. Around you rise tall, vast piles of debris sloping down to the unscathed flower bed. Delightedly shouting out, "You did it! I knew you could do it!" you pull away from the hug and scramble up the heap.

            The wreckage stretches out before you as far as you can see, an entire city leveled as flat as the mudcastles you used to trample after building in Waterfall. And speaking of Waterfall, it looks like nothing so much as the mounds of garbage that used to collect there. Well, that's only appropriate — trash ought to look like what it is. A thick, brown haze hovers over everything, defining the limits of your vision.

            Can air this questionable give you cancer? Probably.

            Can Asriel's new godlike healing powers cure cancer? Probably!

            "Chara?" Asriel clambers up behind you, and you shoot him a smile over your shoulder before setting off on a stroll through the ruins. His pace is longer than yours, so you can hear his footsteps striking out of rhythm with your own as he follows you.

            You pick your way through the rubble, leaping above gaps, vaulting over obstacles, teetering with careful balance across fallen beams. It feels good to get in motion after so long of being carried around everywhere, and everything here is so _open_. You can't remember the last time you felt this free. Have you ever?

            You keep an eye out for bodies, but don't see any. They must all be buried deep, crushed beneath your feet. You wonder if there's anything alive down there, and, if so, how long it'll stay that way. There probably isn't much air, and there definitely isn't any food or water. You're starting to feel a bit parched yourself, but at least you aren't trapped with that torment. You jump down from the crest of a small hill and imagine that the impact of your landing sends a bruising shockwave down to some helpless, suffering captive.

            Asriel sticks to you like a shadow. Now and then when you glance back in his direction, you catch him holding his arms out toward you slightly, like a gymnastic spotter. He tries to act casual when he sees you looking, but you aren't fooled. Honestly, he's still such a baby about some things. You probably aren't going to fall, and if you do fall you probably won't be hurt that badly, and if you do get hurt he can just heal you. It's very sweet of him, but can't he see that you're playing? Games are always more fun when they have some kind of stakes.

            You stop and turn to face him. "What's the matter, Asriel?" you ask, voice carefully pleasant. "Aren't you happy? Aren't you having fun? You should be celebrating your freedom."

            "Nothing's the matter," he says petulantly, and turns his face away. "I'm just happy that you're happy."

            "Oh? What's so interesting over that way, then?" You make a show of following his averted gaze, shading your eyes with a hand caked in blood and grime. "I don't see anything."

            "Chara..." Asriel groans in frustration and tosses his head a little, just enough to set the chain around his neck jangling. Your attention gets caught on his locket, the twin of the one tucked under your own sweater. _Forever_ sounded like such a hopeless promise once, back when he first found these for you. Now it feels gloriously possible, and you aren't ever going to let him renege on it.

            "Chara's over here." You grab hold of the chain and pull on it until he looks at you again.

            "Knock it off," he whines, and takes hold of your fist to try to pry away your fingers. He's certainly strong enough, but his digits are thick and clumsy compared to yours, and you're confident he won't resort to breaking your hand.

            You retaliate by yanking him back and forth in quick, rough jerks. "If you aren't going to do anything but follow me around like a sad puppy," you tease, "I might as well keep you on a leash!"

            The moment the words are out of your mouth, you feel as though you have made a terrible error.

            Asriel suddenly stops struggling, and you don't think it's in response to you having just as suddenly stopped jostling him, because he's staring at you like you said something weird. You think that it probably _was_ weird, because the back of your neck is uncomfortably warm. Your face is warm. Your chest is warm.

            Asriel's hands are warm.

            So, all right, somehow the thing that sounded like mockery when it first popped into your head sounds more like _flirting_ when you say it out loud. Now there's a stupid blush creeping up your face and swallowing you whole like you kind of wish the ground below you would. Or — wait, you're not as pale as you used to be, right? Maybe you don't blush visibly anymore. Maybe you can still salvage this.

            If you meant to do it, then you're still in control. With that in mind, you tilt your face up and drag Asriel down until his lips connect with yours. He doesn't resist.

            Soft. Everything about this stupid boy is so, so soft, even when you're more or less crashing into each other face-first. There are teeth under there, you know: silly little fangs that always poked out to betray him when he was trying not to smile at a joke you'd made, because it wasn't the kind of joke that good kids find funny. You know that adults kiss with open mouths and tongues, and you're tempted to somehow push your way past those soft, soft lips so you can test the sharpness of those fangs for yourself. But you can't quite figure out how to do that, and you're afraid that if you try, you'll just give away how hopelessly un-adult you really are.

            This isn't really helping you feel cooler, figuratively or literally. You feel like you're burning alive and also panicking. That should be bad, but it isn't. It's kind of the opposite of bad.

            You release your hold on Asriel and watch him straighten back up with the abruptness of a recoiling spring. All right —  _now_ you feel like you have control back.

            "Well?" you ask, smiling almost wider than your face can hold. You aren't sure what kind of response you expect from him, but you want to put him on the spot before he has a chance to do the same to you.

            "Uh." Asriel stammers and sputters for what feels like a full minute before managing to spit out, "Th-thank you?"

            What the hell, Asriel? You laugh until you cry, and cry until your nose runs, and wipe your face with a sweater sleeve that probably only makes it filthier. Asriel stares on, looking so horribly, horribly alarmed, but that just makes it harder to stop laughing. "You're welcome!" you manage to say, finally. "Now, come on! Let's keep exploring!"

            He's still silent and weirdly sullen as you set back off, but you don't think it can be too much of a problem after _that_.

            The heap of wreckage you're trekking across slopes downward as you near the edges of the city. Out here, there are some recognizably human remains, and even a few mostly intact bodies. You jump on them like rain puddles or leaf piles. The ribs cracking beneath your feet throw you off-balance as they collapse, and Asriel has to catch you — which is a little undignified, but worth it. You're getting kind of used to falling into his arms. It's weirdly fun.

            Eventually, you find half of a convenience store that's still standing. Asriel mutters something about it maybe falling on you as you go to loot it, but you ignore him, and he follows you anyway. Obviously, the power is out on the refrigerated cases, but you're thirsty enough that lukewarm water is just as satisfying as cold. You down three bottles of it in as many minutes.

            Once your throat no longer feels like sandpaper, you start browsing through the shelves of snacks. You still aren't particularly hungry after the ridiculous amounts of monster food Frisk shoveled down yesterday, but that's not going to stop you if the chocolate aisle survived the store's partial collapse.

            Unfortunately, it does not appear to have done so. But you find something almost as good hidden behind the very last shelf.

            It sits curled up with its face pressed into its knees. When it hears you approaching, it screams, flops over on its side, and skitters away like a bug, as though it hasn't even noticed that it's bigger than you.

            "Hold it for me, Asriel," you command. "Put it on its knees."

            Asriel darts past you in a blur, and in seconds he has the thing kneeling with his arm around its throat and his hand around its wrists at its back.

            "But you're a child!" it manages to blurt out amidst all the cringing and crying as you walk up to it.

            "Am I really?" You consider it. You certainly _were_ a child, when you died. Frisk was a child when _they_ died. But... "You know, I don't even recognize any of the brand names on the things in this store. Isn't that strange? People die and cities change, but you still somehow expect giant corporations to be immortal. I think I am probably very, very old."

            You can't get to its neck with Asriel's arm in the way, and your knife is just dull enough that stabbing through its layers of clothes might be a hassle. You need something soft and unguarded to work with. That leaves...

            You rest your off-hand on top of its head to hold it in place, press the tip of your knife against its eye, and, ignoring the almost incoherent begging, slowly push the blade in. You get stuck in the socket a couple of times, but a bit of aggressive jiggling chips away enough of the bone for you to continue. The whimpering turns to screaming turns to silence. You yank your knife free, Asriel lets go, and the human hits the ground like a sack of garbage tossed down on the curb.

            Giggling, you throw yourself at Asriel, expecting him to fold you into his arms. Instead, he catches you by the shoulders and holds you out at a distance. You didn't notice before, but he seems to be hyperventilating.

            "What's wrong, Asriel?" you ask. "That fresh soul still giving you trouble?" This could get old quickly, if it doesn't stop soon.

            "No. Yes. Sort of. There's just... there's a lot of things. A lot of... feelings. That I'm not used to." He shudders, and it reaches the fingers gripping you like the far edge of a ripple. "I'm sorry. I know I'm being weird and unfun. Everything is just so, so strange right now. I'd completely forgotten what people _are_."

            "Awful?" you suggest.

            "Y-yes? Um, but. The thing is... the thing I mean is that they're..." He looks at his feet, seems to suddenly remember what's down there, and jerks his head back toward you. "They're _real_." He isn't making any sense, and maybe he knows that, because his expression is lost and confused.

            Maybe he's just worn out. You had a chance to sleep earlier, but he didn't. "Let's rest for now," you suggest. You take his hand and lead him a few feet away, then motion for him to sit down with his back against the wall. He does, and you drop into his lap. "Now you're my pillow," you inform him, nuzzling your head into his chest.

            "O-oh," is his only response.

            "It's a little bit cold," you say with an affected shiver, and that's all it takes for him to wrap his arms around you. "Thank you, Asriel. You really are a wonderful friend."

            "Y-yeah. You too."

            It's been a good day, to say the least. You wonder if you can put a number on how good. Obviously, your village had grown a lot, but if the rest of the world has been growing at the same speed, then it should work out to the same as a fraction, shouldn't it?

            Three-thousand out of seven-billion. That's... less than half of a millionth, isn't it? Not even a dent, all things considered. At this rate, it would take you two-million days to finish everything. You'll have to work a little quicker.

            Then again, if you _really_ wanted to be thorough, you would just have Asriel blow up the planet. Anything less than that, and you'll probably miss at least a few little holdout communities, especially when people realize what's happening and start actively trying to hide. But maybe if you destroy enough to make civilization collapse, what's left of humanity will devour itself without any further help. So, thoroughness is less important than having a world where you can keep playing with Asriel. Living well may not be the _best_ revenge, but it's delicious chocolate icing on the cake.

            "I'm glad I can feel this way, though," Asriel murmurs, almost to himself, and you abandon your train of thought to listen in. "I'm glad I can care about _you_. It's not like it changes anything. I still couldn't go back to how things were, not even if I wanted to. No one else would ever forgive me. No one else would understand. It has to be you. It can only ever be you." He falls silent for long enough that you think he's finished, when, suddenly, he blurts out, "I really love you, Chara. I love you so, so much."

            He says it like it's some deep, dark secret and not the clearest, brightest, most obvious truth in the world.

            You're fairly certain now that you love him, too. But you can't give him your word on that, not yet. There's something else that you can give him, though.

            "I forgive you," you tell him. "I don't even care anymore about that time you betrayed me. I completely, utterly, unconditionally forgive you. For everything."

            "Chara..." You feel his breathing stutter a bit, and then you hear him crying. You're so content right now that you decide you won't even tease him about it. "Thank you, Chara." He presses a kiss to the top of your head before leaning his chin there.

            He's still wrapped around you when you drift off. He always will be.


End file.
